Visual representation of the final minutes of FR24 data, thanks to EDDTSpotter on twitter.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

747Whale wrote:

THS214 wrote:

That is a Airliners.net myth but not the way pilots work. For example when ATC says go around, pilots say on the radio "go around" and then do what needs for go around.

Actually, it's exactly how it works. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

In that order.

So you can’t do more than one of those at the same time?

[Waiting to get my head ripped off from the expert]

Unfortuenately, not. As a corporate jet pilot, and having experienced my fair share of inflight emergencies and simulator experiences, the very first thought is to fix the airplane. From the early reports the plane was already low level (7000’ish) and in a severe nose low attitude. Calling ATC in those situations is very low on ones priority list.

PS I hope I didn’t rip your head off, I was really trying to be nice about it. To me, any question is a fair question.

Condolences to the families of the crew. I have a friend who flies for Atlas. Sad day.

There are so many (and so few) things that could have gone this catastrophically wrong, from the predictable to the extraordinarily-unlikely, that I think we're gonna find that guessing at what it might have been is going to be pretty-useless. Could be anything from a major mechanical failure to a cascading series of events initiated by distracting conversation with the jumpseater.

You have an experienced crew in a generally-well-maintained aircraft flown by a significant Part 121 airline flying in conditions seen every day. Nobody is going to be able to do more than throw darts at a dartboard until NTSB reads out the CVR and FDR, which they apparently already have.

Uncommanded thrust reverser activation perhaps?

CanesFan wrote:

Uncommanded thrust reverser activation perhaps?

Defiantly not. In the way T/R deployment is done...No

drerx7 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

musman9853 wrote:

only reason i can think of that makes sense is that they knew they were doomed and didnt want to hurt anyone on the ground.

More likely the turn was to avoid weather, which is what they wanted from ATC.

GF

Doubtful. That turn is sudden and intentional... not ATC instructed. This looks like a turn to avoid casualties on the ground.

Um what? They were at 9,000 when they started the left turn. This looks like a turn to avoid weather. Have you listened to the ATC audio? They wanted to go to the West.

jetmechanicdave wrote:

CanesFan wrote:

Uncommanded thrust reverser activation perhaps?

Defiantly not. In the way T/R deployment is done...No

I was just thinking of the Lauda Air crash back in the 90's.

AirstairFear wrote:

kabq737 wrote:

It is also worth noting that as an all amazon flight it would be very hard for anything but common goods to be on this flight.

Depends on your definition of "very hard". How hard is it for a low-wage Amazon employee to slip a device into a shipment that he knows is bound for an aircraft? Keep in mind these are the caliber of employees that have been occasionally caught pocketing items and shipping empty boxes to the customers instead. If they can get away with that, surely they can get away with swapping items of similar weight.

Also consider what happens when a 3rd party FBA seller has items in an Amazon warehouse that need to be repositioned. (Amazon has no clue what's really in these boxes.) So far I have found just a single article behind a paywall that supposedly says that Amazon Air doesn't airlift 3rd party products, but I refuse to believe that it can never ever happen. Knowing a bit about how Amazon's processes work, or sometimes don't work, as the case may be.

You see to know a bit of the process so I'll chime in.

Little. An FC employee won't know it's heading to the plane at all, they don't know how it's being transported. After it's been packed it moves down the conveyor and at the end it's when it get's it's label, even then, it still doesn't say how it's being transported to any employee who sees it as in transit to the dock. The label would say the sort center it would go through and the destination center. I.E - LAS6 (Vegas), ONT (Ontario). Can a manager see it, sure, someone in logistics too. Access is severely restricted.

Switching of items is known, yes. But it would have to be something within a very low spec to be able to move through. The tolerance is VERY low for package weight if the scales are calibrated.

In regards to FBA items being transported, yes, it can happen. They can easily be relabelled to be Amazon stock by accident.

I will say, it's a bit far stretched to think that a warehouse employee would cause something like this because of their "caliber". It's completely possible, I'm not saying it's not, it's just a bit too far. There's so many things that would have to be done for this to happen, but whatever Prime Air has in place.

FYI - ex Operations Manager FC (6 years). Was there before Air and after it came along.

log0008 wrote:

Visual representation of the final minutes of FR24 data, thanks to EDDTSpotter on twitter.

Looks like a slight ascent just prior to the dive.

So bizarre that it just noses right over and into the ground. As far as the weather does anyone have an image of exactly where that system was at 12:45pm?

Thanks, Redwood, for those insights. I think it's unreasonable to focus on cargo or the cause of the (very few) 767 previous hull losses before looking in more obvious places. Cargo contents on Amazon Air flights is much of a controlled factor than on just about any other cargo (or for that matter passenger) flight, because the company chartering the plane is the same company packing the boxes to ship.

Is there video of the NTSB press briefing anywhere?

Tragedy to see this has happened. Thoughts and prayers with the crews families. Looking like the left turn was to avoid WX possibly. Radar image taken roughly 2 minutes after passing near Anahuac.

Is it me or does it seem that on that ATC recording there were a lot of 20 and 30 degree turn requests for weather? That radar image was, what, 10 or 20 minutes prior to the disappearance? Which way was that line heading? NE E? SE? In 10 or so minutes that red blob may have been right about where the crash is reported to have taken place.

Luckily the water there is shallow. Unluckily, it will take a few days to dig around the muck to find it, but it will be found.

LONGisland89 wrote:

drerx7 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

More likely the turn was to avoid weather, which is what they wanted from ATC.

GF

Doubtful. That turn is sudden and intentional... not ATC instructed. This looks like a turn to avoid casualties on the ground.

Um what? They were at 9,000 when they started the left turn. This looks like a turn to avoid weather. Have you listened to the ATC audio? They wanted to go to the West.

9000 appears to be when things started going wrong IMO.

What about potential damage due to large hail? A large cumulonimbus cloud can eject hail laterally miles from the cell.

musman9853 wrote:

KICT wrote:

That left turn is bizarre.

only reason i can think of that makes sense is that they knew they were doomed and didnt want to hurt anyone on the ground.

Yes, that's possible. But with the little we know I hate guess. Anyway I will just mention that the left turn could as well be consistent with a major structual failure on the plane.

I am afraid that the recorders may be very hard to find. Just last week I happened to visit a similar crash site here in Denmark. A Lancaster bomber on its way back home was in 1943 shot down by a German fighter and came down in a steep angle in a similar shallow lake or swamp. Only small bits and pieces were found.

Of the 8 crews the war records tell that "one unidentified torso" was recovered, guesses are that the extra thick and warm leather jacket of the tail gunner contained some human remains.

Fifty years ago the area was drained with channels and pumps and made into grain fields, and the crater and immediate surroundings was made into a proper war grave.

If remains should be recovered (which of course won't happen), then a pretty large area would need to be escavated maybe fifty feet down and filtered. And nothing identifiable would be found except four broken engine blocks and the most sturdy parts of the landing gear.

The only thing is, the aircraft had not entered the cell at the moment of the crash yet. Listening to the ATC, I stand corrected that it could have been to avoid the cell...but there was no weather at the location of impact at time of impact

What about a sudden cockpit intrusion? A flock of geese through the windows? Rapid decompression?

My guess is #1 mechanical, #2 environmental, (combination of the two).......#3 suicide/intentional deployment of the TR......#4 act of terror or sabotage.

RIP to the crew and peace be with the families.

Here is a better cobbling together of the ATC audio than the other one that is circulating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... RirRCh3Xts

georgiabill wrote:

Could a cargo movement affected the center of gravity enough to cause this accident?

It could, but on an aircraft hauling package cargo for Amazon only, I doubt that could be the case. That would be more likely on an aircraft hauling heavier goods, such as a 747 or 777 freighter. Remember, a 767-300ER has an MTOW of only about 187t...whereas a 777F is 348t and more on the 747F.

Redwood839 wrote:

AirstairFear wrote:

kabq737 wrote:

It is also worth noting that as an all amazon flight it would be very hard for anything but common goods to be on this flight.

Depends on your definition of "very hard". How hard is it for a low-wage Amazon employee to slip a device into a shipment that he knows is bound for an aircraft? Keep in mind these are the caliber of employees that have been occasionally caught pocketing items and shipping empty boxes to the customers instead. If they can get away with that, surely they can get away with swapping items of similar weight.

Also consider what happens when a 3rd party FBA seller has items in an Amazon warehouse that need to be repositioned. (Amazon has no clue what's really in these boxes.) So far I have found just a single article behind a paywall that supposedly says that Amazon Air doesn't airlift 3rd party products, but I refuse to believe that it can never ever happen. Knowing a bit about how Amazon's processes work, or sometimes don't work, as the case may be.

You see to know a bit of the process so I'll chime in.

Little. An FC employee won't know it's heading to the plane at all, they don't know how it's being transported. After it's been packed it moves down the conveyor and at the end it's when it get's it's label, even then, it still doesn't say how it's being transported to any employee who sees it as in transit to the dock. The label would say the sort center it would go through and the destination center. I.E - LAS6 (Vegas), ONT (Ontario). Can a manager see it, sure, someone in logistics too. Access is severely restricted.

Switching of items is known, yes. But it would have to be something within a very low spec to be able to move through. The tolerance is VERY low for package weight if the scales are calibrated.

In regards to FBA items being transported, yes, it can happen. They can easily be relabelled to be Amazon stock by accident.

I will say, it's a bit far stretched to think that a warehouse employee would cause something like this because of their "caliber". It's completely possible, I'm not saying it's not, it's just a bit too far. There's so many things that would have to be done for this to happen, but whatever Prime Air has in place.

FYI - ex Operations Manager FC (6 years). Was there before Air and after it came along.

My mind went back to the FAA fine of Amazon for not properly packaging and declaring hazardous items: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/201 ... /85837288/ That was a while ago, but I could see this being a reoccurance of the issue. Although, I doubt it given how quickly this plane lost contact.

prebennorholm wrote:

musman9853 wrote:

KICT wrote:

That left turn is bizarre.

only reason i can think of that makes sense is that they knew they were doomed and didnt want to hurt anyone on the ground.

Yes, that's possible. But with the little we know I hate guess. Anyway I will just mention that the left turn could as well be consistent with a major structual failure on the plane.

I am afraid that the recorders may be very hard to find. Just last week I happened to visit a similar crash site here in Denmark. A Lancaster bomber on its way back home was in 1943 shot down by a German fighter and came down in a steep angle in a similar shallow lake or swamp. Only small bits and pieces were found.

Of the 8 crews the war records tell that "one unidentified torso" was recovered, guesses are that the extra thick and warm leather jacket of the tail gunner contained some human remains.

Fifty years ago the area was drained with channels and pumps and made into grain fields, and the crater and immediate surroundings was made into a proper war grave.

If remains should be recovered (which of course won't happen), then a pretty large area would need to be escavated maybe fifty feet down and filtered. And nothing identifiable would be found except four broken engine blocks and the most sturdy parts of the landing gear.

There are reports they already found the recorders.

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

What about a sudden cockpit intrusion? A flock of geese through the windows? Rapid decompression?

My guess is #1 mechanical, #2 environmental, (combination of the two).......#3 suicide/intentional deployment of the TR......#4 act of terror or sabotage.

RIP to the crew and peace be with the families.

If by “cockpit instrusion” you mean someone gaining access to the flight deck you could rule that out. The way the freighter is designed there is no flight deck door as there is no cabin. You walk in the L1 door and the whole flight deck area is open. Unfortunately we can’t rule out nefarious actions by crew members but there would be no “instrusion” as the jumpseater would have been up in the flight deck the entire time. Rapid decompression can be ruled as well as the airplane was so low, even if a door blew out the cabin would only climb to 7000ish feet, the crew wouldn’t even need to be on oxygen.

flyer737sw wrote:

What about potential damage due to large hail? A large cumulonimbus cloud can eject hail laterally miles from the cell.

That’s a very good plausible factor. Although hail alone hasn’t brought down very many aircraft of this size. A stall/spin seems most reasonable to me, but why they would spin is a whole other question. There is obviously a lot of investigation to do.

flyer737sw wrote:

What about potential damage due to large hail? A large cumulonimbus cloud can eject hail laterally miles from the cell.

I’m part of this forum for almost 15 years now.
Every time an aircraft crash, we have a lot of wild speculation about the possible reasons, from UFOs to meteors, everything is here. It is interesting to read and sometimes, only a few times, when the final report is made public, some of the theories discussed here can be close to the actual causes. The majority of the times we are not even close.
A nosedive like this one reminds other crashes of the past like, for example, the string of crashes of 737s related to the uncommanded rudder deflections. However, there is nothing more in common with this tragic event. So one more time, we have to wait. We should have better information about this in the next months. Be patient.

Rgds.
G.

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

What about a sudden cockpit intrusion? A flock of geese through the windows? Rapid decompression?

My guess is #1 mechanical, #2 environmental, (combination of the two).......#3 suicide/intentional deployment of the TR......#4 act of terror or sabotage.

RIP to the crew and peace be with the families.

Great guesses....mechanical, weather, suicide, terrorism. Pretty much covered it all.

That's a very small oil/fuel slick... did they have a malfunction and run out of fuel?

Several pilots who were departing out of IAH around the same time say the weather wasn't all that bad... the aircraft radar wasn't picking up much and the tops on that weather weren't much at all.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

georgiabill wrote:

Could a cargo movement affected the center of gravity enough to cause this accident?

It could, but on an aircraft hauling package cargo for Amazon only, I doubt that could be the case. That would be more likely on an aircraft hauling heavier goods, such as a 747 or 777 freighter. Remember, a 767-300ER has an MTOW of only about 187t...whereas a 777F is 348t and more on the 747F.

This is correct but I would argue the weight of the cargo is significantly more important than the weight of the aircraft. In the case of the National crash it was a result of a 15ish ton MRAP breaking free of its straps and rolling to the aft area of the cargo hold. In the case of an Amazon airplane each can weights about one ton (2000ish lbs, normally give or take 500 lbs.). Even if one can got loose the majority of the time the cargo area is full, even if we are just moving empty cans, so the loose can wouldn’t be able to go very far. Keep in mind too that the load shift would have most likely occurred on takeoff out of Miami if it was going to happen anywhere.

OB1504 wrote:

ubeema wrote:

OB1504 wrote:

Oh my god. I drove past that airplane this morning and saw it getting fueled for the accident flight. I can’t believe it’s destroyed now.

And can you believe more importantly 3 people lost their life! These people have colleagues that happen to be in forums such as this one.

Calm down. That's not how I meant it and you know it.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

747Whale wrote:

Actually, it's exactly how it works. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

In that order.

So you can’t do more than one of those at the same time?

[Waiting to get my head ripped off from the expert]

In a loss of control situation? No. If you can't aviate, you're sure as hell not able to communicate.

There was context to the comment which was not isolated to this accident or scenario. Nobody - including myself - expects pilots fighting an aircraft to stop and ring up ATC. However, it’s not beyond the realm that they might.

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

What about a sudden cockpit intrusion? A flock of geese through the windows? Rapid decompression?

My guess is #1 mechanical, #2 environmental, (combination of the two).......#3 suicide/intentional deployment of the TR......#4 act of terror or sabotage.

RIP to the crew and peace be with the families.

Rapid decompression doesn't mean anything at the low altitude this aircraft was at, ie well below 10,000ft.

Yes, multiple bird ingestion is possible but only as a factor. Loss of thrust does not mean a sudden dive, just a glide, unless badly handled.
Indeed a ground witness describes engines 'surging' before the crash. If that is true, and the witness knew what they were talking about, then multiple birds could have taken out engines and precipitated the accident. Birds are always a potential hazard close to water, particularly marshy water.

We'll have to wait to find out for sure. It could well be something like that.

G500Captain wrote:

PlanesNTrains wrote:

747Whale wrote:

Actually, it's exactly how it works. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

In that order.

So you can’t do more than one of those at the same time?

[Waiting to get my head ripped off from the expert]

Unfortuenately, not. As a corporate jet pilot, and having experienced my fair share of inflight emergencies and simulator experiences, the very first thought is to fix the airplane. From the early reports the plane was already low level (7000’ish) and in a severe nose low attitude. Calling ATC in those situations is very low on ones priority list.

PS I hope I didn’t rip your head off, I was really trying to be nice about it. To me, any question is a fair question.

No haha you’re fine. That was directed at the one I was quoting. I get that in an emergency you aren’t prioritizing communication, but the broader point I was making was that there might be times when someone does more than one at a time - not necessarily always or even often. I guess it depends on what’s going on.

usflyguy wrote:

That's a very small oil/fuel slick... did they have a malfunction and run out of fuel?

Wouldn't cause that decent profile.

SuseJ772 wrote:

prebennorholm wrote:

musman9853 wrote:

only reason i can think of that makes sense is that they knew they were doomed and didnt want to hurt anyone on the ground.

Yes, that's possible. But with the little we know I hate guess. Anyway I will just mention that the left turn could as well be consistent with a major structual failure on the plane.

I am afraid that the recorders may be very hard to find. Just last week I happened to visit a similar crash site here in Denmark. A Lancaster bomber on its way back home was in 1943 shot down by a German fighter and came down in a steep angle in a similar shallow lake or swamp. Only small bits and pieces were found.

Of the 8 crews the war records tell that "one unidentified torso" was recovered, guesses are that the extra thick and warm leather jacket of the tail gunner contained some human remains.

Fifty years ago the area was drained with channels and pumps and made into grain fields, and the crater and immediate surroundings was made into a proper war grave.

If remains should be recovered (which of course won't happen), then a pretty large area would need to be escavated maybe fifty feet down and filtered. And nothing identifiable would be found except four broken engine blocks and the most sturdy parts of the landing gear.

There are reports they already found the recorders.

And human remains.

AirstairFear wrote:

kabq737 wrote:

It is also worth noting that as an all amazon flight it would be very hard for anything but common goods to be on this flight.

Depends on your definition of "very hard". How hard is it for a low-wage Amazon employee to slip a device into a shipment that he knows is bound for an aircraft? Keep in mind these are the caliber of employees that have been occasionally caught pocketing items and shipping empty boxes to the customers instead. If they can get away with that, surely they can get away with swapping items of similar weight.

Also consider what happens when a 3rd party FBA seller has items in an Amazon warehouse that need to be repositioned. (Amazon has no clue what's really in these boxes.) So far I have found just a single article behind a paywall that supposedly says that Amazon Air doesn't airlift 3rd party products, but I refuse to believe that it can never ever happen. Knowing a bit about how Amazon's processes work, or sometimes don't work, as the case may be.

I’ve been in an Amazon facility in recent months daily as a customer representative, the security is better than the TSA. The area where they do the airline stuff requires stronger credentials, they don’t fool around.

CanesFan wrote:

jetmechanicdave wrote:

CanesFan wrote:

Uncommanded thrust reverser activation perhaps?

Defiantly not. In the way T/R deployment is done...No

I was just thinking of the Lauda Air crash back in the 90's.

IIRC there was an AD issued to solve that problem

usflyguy wrote:

That's a very small oil/fuel slick... did they have a malfunction and run out of fuel?

Being out of fuel wouldn't cause a nose dive.

Do we know for a fact the aircraft was nose down? Or just that it had a high rate of decent?

LAXLHR wrote:

KLASM83 wrote:

Miami wrote:

Does it matter what type of flight it was? Lives were lost.

A death is a death is a death, no matter what the haul.

Okay okay, lets not beat that poster up. I'm sure he means "at least" as in, if it was a passenger plane the death toll would be much higher!! Of course one life lost is one life too many. It's very sad.

Then your comment is just as bad! My dad is an Atlas pilot. I sat making repeated phone calls to make sure he was ok. The post was cold, callous, and unnecessary. By that logic, is a 737 crash worse than a CRJ crash? Is a 777 crash worse than a 767 crash? Is a 737 crash with an 80 percent load factor worse than a 737 crash with a 75 percent load factor?? I seriously have my doubts that we’d ever see a post that says, “sad, but at least there weren’t 10 more people onboard.”

A crash is a crash is a crash. It typically doesn’t matter if it is cargo or passenger, we learn the same lessons and apply them to both sides of the business. I know there are exceptions, but aviation safety doesn’t discriminate.

You can write this off as an emotional post. Whatever. But I think there is a small minority in this thread who have their priorities massively wrong.

SaveFerris wrote:

In the case of the National crash it was a result of a 15ish ton MRAP breaking free of its straps and rolling to the aft area of the cargo hold.

And the spare tire mounted on the rear of the MRAP punching a hole in the aft pressure bulkhead and breaking one of the mounting points for the horizontal stabilizer jackscrew. NTSB determined that was the reason for LOC, not the weight shift. (Edit to correct: IIRC, what punched through, IIRC, was an antenna mounting bracket mounted on the rear of the truck. Or something along those lines.)

SaveFerris wrote:

GEUltraFan9XGTF wrote:

What about a sudden cockpit intrusion? A flock of geese through the windows? Rapid decompression?

My guess is #1 mechanical, #2 environmental, (combination of the two).......#3 suicide/intentional deployment of the TR......#4 act of terror or sabotage.

RIP to the crew and peace be with the families.

If by “cockpit instrusion” you mean someone gaining access to the flight deck you could rule that out. The way the freighter is designed there is no flight deck door as there is no cabin. You walk in the L1 door and the whole flight deck area is open. Unfortunately we can’t rule out nefarious actions by crew members but there would be no “instrusion” as the jumpseater would have been up in the flight deck the entire time. Rapid decompression can be ruled as well as the airplane was so low, even if a door blew out the cabin would only climb to 7000ish feet, the crew wouldn’t even need to be on oxygen.

No, I meant geese (or hail) breaking the cockpit windows rapidly and suddenly. That kind of intrusion. Obviously, not through the cockpit door.

usflyguy wrote:

That's a very small oil/fuel slick... did they have a malfunction and run out of fuel?

The thing is carrying so much energy that even if it did run out of fuel it wouldn’t fall out of the sky....we like to forget that planes are meant to fly, not fall. Even with no power they should be able to glide for some period of time, not nosedive....

We need to be better right now as aviation enthusiests and as compassionate human beings.
No one knows what happened. Airplanes don’t just nose over and dive for no reason. The ntsb will tell us what happen, until then I really feel terrible for the families of atlas air

dtwpilot225 wrote:

We need to be better right now as aviation enthusiests and as compassionate human beings.
No one knows what happened. Airplanes don’t just nose over and dive for no reason. The ntsb will tell us what happen, until then I really feel terrible for the families of atlas air

Agreed. The only silver lining to an accident is that we learn from them and they help us prevent future accidents. Beyond that, there’s no “at least” and no “thank god it wasn’t....”

I can’t wait to see what we learn from this and how it can be used to even further advance aviation safety.

I do wish the FAA wouldn't drag their feet in implementing the recommendations of the NTSB. They often give operators years to make changes. That is unacceptable.

wjcandee wrote:

There are so many (and so few) things that could have gone this catastrophically wrong, from the predictable to the extraordinarily-unlikely, that I think we're gonna find that guessing at what it might have been is going to be pretty-useless. Could be anything from a major mechanical failure to a cascading series of events initiated by distracting conversation with the jumpseater.

You have an experienced crew in a generally-well-maintained aircraft flown by a significant Part 121 airline flying in conditions seen every day. Nobody is going to be able to do more than throw darts at a dartboard until NTSB reads out the CVR and FDR, which they apparently already have.

Being "a significant Part 121 airline" does not lend any credibility to the matter.

Take Emery Worldwide for example. They were one of the top cargo airlines in the world and had a stellar reputation. After Flight #17 where 3 crew members lost their lives in a horrific accident just after departing from Sacramento, investigators found that sketchy maintenance practices plagued the airline's fleet. Less than a year after that the airline, which had been flying freight for almost 55 years, went out of business.

What if it's a case regarding the Elevator Hardover? This was based on the views of Egyptian Authorities on MS990 crash which again involved a Boeing 767-300ER

jensona6 wrote:

What if it's a case regarding the Elevator Hardover? This was based on the views of Egyptian Authorities on MS990 crash which again involved a Boeing 767-300ER

Egypt Air 990 is a closed case. It was pilot sucide.

twinotter wrote:

floridaflyboy wrote:

You can write this off as an emotional post. Whatever. But I think there is a small minority in this thread who have their priorities massively wrong.

You're not wrong, and your post is rational. There is a subset of users here who love airplanes (not aviation, airplanes) pathologically. One poster even said his first thought after 9/11 was to think of the airplane. IMO, that indicates a mental illness.

There are many accident investigators, first responders, hospital workers, etc. that quite well need to block out the human and emotional side of things to deal with the tasks at hand. Someone has to do the dirty work. I hardly think it's unemotional per se and for sure not a mental illness.